Renaissance V. Kiwi wax

Dan Mosley

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Location
Palm Springs, Ca
I had read on one of the posts here or on AAW that there was no difference between Renaissance wax and Kiwi shoe wax (sold in the store) except the high price difference between the two. The person writing stated that there is no difference in the ingredients. So, today I had to do some food shopping and picked up a can of clear Kiwi to test it and see.

I took two mesquite small vessels and sanded to 320, coated with Shellac x 2 and aggressively sanded down well between each coat (filler), then sanded thru the grits to 1000 ........then applied Renaissance on one and Kiwi on the other.......No buffing wheels.......... just hand applied it on the lathe and hand buffed off.....both vessels have a nice feel and soft glow....very acceptable.
Pic's below-----The orange strip in the pic is just the way the photo came out ...........But, Can you tell which one the Renaissance is on and which has the Kiwi ?

My conclusion - the ingredients are not stated on either container so that point is out...................
- both produce a very nice finish but in real life with the vessels in front of me I can tell which is the Renaissance
- I would use it over alot of other waxes for sure it shines up very nicely and very easy to apply. You can easily hand buff with the Kiwi and you can
coat your work a second time with a couple drops of water to shine it up more (so the can says and i did try on the one vessel) .....
 

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Interesting that you can tell the difference between the two. Does the Kiwi seem to resist fingerprints as good as the Renaissance Wax? The fingerprint resistance is probably the main reason I use Renaissance Wax.
 
So far It does seem to reisist fingerprints...........Im not sure if its because of sanding or just that I knew which one on put on which vessel.....I asked 3 family members to tell me which one had the better finish on it and none of them could tell and said they both looked and felt the same.

ohhhh the one on the left in the picture is the Kiwi finish........

It could be there is really no noticable difference but one thing for sure ill be using it because its easy and produces a good finish.
Im sure most of you are aware that the kiwi comes in different colors (black, brown, clear) and I bought the clear
In a week or so im going to put it on a DO pc I have drying and see what it looks like also....Ill post the pics............thanks Dan
 
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ohhhh the one on the left in the picture is the Kiwi finish........

It could be there is really no noticable difference but one thing for sure ill be using it because its easy and produces a good finish.
Im sure most of you are aware that the kiwi comes in different colors (black, brown, clear) and I bought the clear
In a week or so im going to put it on a DO pc I have drying and see what it looks like also....Ill post the pics............thanks Dan

Darn,
I thought you were gonna let us guess... :D
But my guess was the left anyway... I think it has a softer glow than the one on the right and figured the Ren wax might be a little harder finish than the KIWI...

On that note, I acquired a piece of carved sculpture that came from the Philippines... that was a number of years a go and I've since lost the piece... either in one of my moves or LOML tossed it... It was a water buffalo in some dark wood... well done, but when I got it there were some scuffs and marks on one side... I used black shoe polish.. probably KIWI to both re-stain it and to polish it up... worked like a charm.
 
No Renaissance wax is better because I just bought a $27 dollar can and I don't want to feel like a fool! So it is easy to see the one on the right has a much higher gloss and looks so much more professional. I tried to compare the ingredient once doing an internet search and even looking at the MSDS's I couldn't tell. But I'm not very scientific minded.

When you add water to shine the shoe polish you call that a spit shine. Remember the military before they started using patent (sp) leather? Spit works great also. I'm an old USMC spit shine expert.
 
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I started trying Kiwi neutral shoe wax after watching Bonnie Klien and Cindy Drozda use it. Cindy said Bonnie give her the idea and she uses it almost exclusively now. It does work pretty well on smaller things I have tried it on.

Oh and the couple of drops of water?? Well in the military service we called that spit shining our boots and of courses you can guess we didn't use a couple of drops of water.:rolleyes:;)
 
Yeah Bernie............but I have a spray bottle............:rofl:
I have used it several times now on finials and some other vessels............it does work well and I just applied by hand and buffed by hand
 
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